Alice Ozma's father read to her every night before bed for 3,218 days straight. "The Streak," as Ozma and her father, Jim Brozina, called it, began when Ozma was in fourth grade and didn't stop until the day she moved into her college dormitory when she was 18 years old. This significant, deeply odd, sometimes-embarrassing, often-inspiring accomplishment is chronicled by 23-year-old Ozma in a new memoir, "The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We...

Police are searching for a carjacker who ordered a man and his 7-year-old daughter into their truck at gunpoint outside a library in Pacoima on Monday, and then forced them to withdraw cash from an ATM before ditching them at a freeway interchange. The incident unfolded at about 3 p.m. when the man approached the father and daughter as they were walking into the library at Haddon Avenue and Van Nuys Boulevard, according to Los Angeles police Sgt. Charles Coleman. The carjacker pulled out a gun and ordered them to get back into their Toyota Tundra and drive to another city, where they were forced to withdraw money from an ATM, Coleman told KTLA-TV . The carjacker then dropped the man and his daughter off at the interchange between the 5 and 14 freeways.

A 10-year-old girl was killed Saturday in Newport Beach when the convertible roadster her father was driving struck a center divider and flipped over, authorities said. Yvette Riley of Corona del Mar was pronounced dead about 2:50 p.m. at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, said Joseph Luckey, Orange County's supervising deputy coroner. Her injured father, David Riley, 41, was taken to the same hospital. The two were driving together around 2 p.m.

A 21-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder and other charges in connection with the fatal shooting of a 6-year-old girl in Moreno Valley, Riverside County sheriff's officials said Tuesday. Jail records showed the suspect, identified as Keandre Narkie Johnson, was arrested in Hemet about 4 p.m. Monday, nine days after Tiana Ricks and her father were struck by gunfire in a Moreno Valley driveway. The records showed Johnson was booked on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, cruelty to a child causing death, and battery, along with a parole violation.

A man shot his 360-pound daughter to put an end to her mounting medical bills but brought her to a hospital two hours later when she didn't die, police said today. Anna Kwiatkowski, 34, was in serious condition at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor. The victim's father, Valentine, 78, and her sister, Carol, 43, were arraigned on attempted murder charges. Bail was set at $50,000. The victim, who suffered from obesity and asthma, was shot twice in the head at close range with a .

Five months after seven family members died in a motor-home explosion during a trip to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the La Puente father and teen-age daughter who survived are slowing coming to grips with their physical and emotional scars. "I guess it's getting easier," said Rosie Garcia, 14, who was critically burned in the accident. "Most of the time I feel sad in the afternoon. My dad always tells me, 'Oh I wish I could see them one more time.'

A Valencia father and daughter missing overnight on snow-covered Mt. Pinos survived by burning their tobaggan for warmth and were found safe Tuesday, authorities said. John Racz, 48, and his daughter, Catlyn, 10, were found about 1 p.m. by a Ventura County Sheriff's Department rescue helicopter, said a spokesman for the Kern County Sheriff's Department, which had also been searching for the two since they were reported missing about 8 p.m. Monday.

A 31-year-old woman shot her father to death Friday in their Woodland Hills photocopying store and then killed herself with the same gun, police said. Aref Orfalea, 60, of Tarzana was pronounced dead at the scene from a single gunshot wound through the back. His daughter, Leslie, of Woodland Hills, shot herself in the head and died a short time later at Northridge Hospital, Los Angeles Police Detective Joe Diglio said.

Police are searching for a carjacker who ordered a man and his 7-year-old daughter into their truck at gunpoint outside a library in Pacoima on Monday, and then forced them to withdraw cash from an ATM before ditching them at a freeway interchange. The incident unfolded at about 3 p.m. when the man approached the father and daughter as they were walking into the library at Haddon Avenue and Van Nuys Boulevard, according to Los Angeles police Sgt. Charles Coleman. The carjacker pulled out a gun and ordered them to get back into their Toyota Tundra and drive to another city, where they were forced to withdraw money from an ATM, Coleman told KTLA-TV . The carjacker then dropped the man and his daughter off at the interchange between the 5 and 14 freeways.

Hundreds of mourners gathered Wednesday for the funeral of a father and daughter slain during a gunman's rampage through Santa Monica earlier this month. Friends and family filed into St. Monica Catholic Church behind two caskets - one holding Carlos Franco, the other his daughter Marcela. During a 13-minute shooting frenzy, authorities say John Zawahri, 23, killed his father, Samir, 55, and older brother, Christopher, 25, at their Santa Monica home before forcing a woman at gunpoint to drive him to Santa Monica College.

New “fulldome” films--digital movies made specifically for projection inside planetariums--will be shown next month at the Imiloa Fulldome Film Festival in Hilo. There's a conference for filmmakers, but their newest works will be screened for the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 5-7. The venue is the Imiloa Astronomy Center on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. New films for the festival include: "Cell, Cell, Cell! ," the story of how complex human bodies are formed from trillions of cells.

Hundreds of mourners gathered Wednesday for the funeral of a father and daughter slain during a gunman's rampage through Santa Monica earlier this month. Friends and family filed into St. Monica Catholic Church behind two caskets - one holding Carlos Franco, the other his daughter Marcela. During a 13-minute shooting frenzy, authorities say John Zawahri, 23, killed his father, Samir, 55, and older brother, Christopher, 25, at their Santa Monica home before forcing a woman at gunpoint to drive him to Santa Monica College.

We all marveled at the hideous thing, trying not to gasp through our regulators. It was black, striped and about the size of a bass, fins fanning out in all directions. Scuba divers see a lot of weird-looking things but appreciate them all the same. But our dive masters told us that there were bounties on these lionfish, ugly creatures that destroy reef-cleaning fish populations. No one knows where they came from or how many threaten Curaçao's marine park. I had come to this small Caribbean island, 35 miles off Venezuela, in June with my father, Matt, a small-business owner.

Alice Ozma's father read to her every night before bed for 3,218 days straight. "The Streak," as Ozma and her father, Jim Brozina, called it, began when Ozma was in fourth grade and didn't stop until the day she moved into her college dormitory when she was 18 years old. This significant, deeply odd, sometimes-embarrassing, often-inspiring accomplishment is chronicled by 23-year-old Ozma in a new memoir, "The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We...

For my daughter, Sophie, it was like finding the goose that laid the golden egg. "Today was a Fairytale," Taylor Swift was singing from the stage at Staples Center, and Sophie, age 11, was singing every word along with her, waving a colored light stick back and forth above her head. Her grin was electric, her attention sharply focused; she wasn't missing anything. For the last year or so, Sophie has been a Taylor Swift obsessive ("I am Taylor's No. 1 fan!" read the sign she brought to the concert with us)

For 20 years, Claire Denis has been among France's foremost filmmakers with her acute yet subtle observations of the ebbs and flows within relationships. Her perception and understanding seem to grow only richer over the years, and her newest film, "35 Shots of Rum," is surely one of her finest -- and thereby one of the best films of the year. With the greatest of ease and assurance, she catches us up in the lives of Lionel (Alex Descas), a long-widowed African immigrant, and his beautiful daughter, Josephine (Mati Diop)

Rene Auberjonois says he no longer feels so fatherly while watching his daughter, Tessa, follow in his distinguished footsteps. Instead, he feels like a professional colleague, free to analyze, critique and enjoy a fellow actor's performance without turning into "a nervous wreck." Auberjonois won a 1970 Tony Award for supporting actor opposite Katharine Hepburn in the musical "Coco." He's most widely recognized for playing Clayton Endicott III on "Benson" and Odo on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

December 13, 2008 | Ruben Vives and Nathan Olivarez-Giles, Vives and Olivarez-Giles are Times staff writers.

Police continued their investigation Friday into the fatal shooting of a man and his 8-year-old daughter in their Hollywood home. The Los Angeles County coroner's office identified the victims as Khachik Safaryan, 43, and his daughter Lusine. Safaryan's 15-year-old daughter found the bodies when she came home from school, said Officer Ana Aguirre of the Los Angeles Police Department. There was no evidence of forced entry into the apartment in the 1200 block of Tamarind Avenue, south of Sunset Boulevard in the Little Armenia neighborhood, police said.

A student at a Christian liberal arts college on Friday was the third young man to be charged in connection with the May killings of two members of an Anaheim Hills family and the near-fatal bludgeoning of a third. Charles Anthony Murphy Jr., 22, of Mission Hills faces two counts of murder and one of attempted murder.